


Dark, Divine

by sicklyscribe



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: e044 The Sunken Tomb, F/M, Vesh is not a fan of The Raven Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15847320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicklyscribe/pseuds/sicklyscribe
Summary: “What are you hesitating for!? Do it! Whatever the fuck you're gonna do, do it!”“She could destroy EVERYTHING.”“What do you mean she could destroy? What do you mean?” “Who's ‘SHE’?”“The dragons will be the least of your fears if She comes back. That's what I mean.”Vesh’s view ofthatscene in The Sunken Tomb.





	Dark, Divine

_"This type of magic - life and death magic - draws a little... **closer**  than you feel comfortable with Vesh."_

* * *

 

When the odd-eyed cleric reaches for his holy symbol, his Lady draws her breath. His touch, vicarious and vivid, wraps around her - and oh, she  _smiles._  There’s a dead girl before him, and desperation in the air, and she can taste it, she can  _tasssste_ it. 

There is no form where she is, no space - no need for it, really. But it’s as if she’s stepping towards him, reaching for him, as he gets closer and closer to considering using her power to raise the fallen warrior. He’s fighting himself, he’s fighting his comrades, he’s fighting  _her_ \- the poor thing, as if he ever could. But oh, he can’t resist, he can’t  _resissst_  doing that brazen act of  _good_. 

Could he not see, could her beloved be so blind? It was not love for his wife that would release her from this shackled state - it was his love for others. 

The power seeped from her, leaned in to him like a kiss, as he reached for a soul to fit a fallen body, as she reached for the material plane. 

But as she reached, Vesh recoiled with a hiss. Her power passed to dear Kashaw, she felt the seal upon her cursed state weaken, ready to be  _snapped_  like so many righteous necks - and someone  _DARED_  to block her passage. 

When gods meet, it’s a storm of clashing energies, divine waves and winds, conversing with thunder and rock. 

When goddesses meet, they prefer to do so face to face. 

She can feel this goddess before she sees her, feel that seeping, soothing, infinite  _calm_  that causes Vesh herself to materialize mid eye-roll.  **“Well, if it isn’t Lady Death.”**

The masked queen nods her head, a condescending bow. 

The mortals struggle in their little hell beneath a lake, a man offers crystals that Vesh violently rejects. Maybe it’s because they were seeped in love and guilt. Maybe it’s because she was so angry,  _so ANGRY_  - the seal lay practically open before her and here this Raven  _Slut_  stood, mouthless,  _groundless_ , in her way. 

**“This ritual is mine. This passage is _mine_. You have no right to stop me.”**

Death’s voice is both loud and soft as she responds,  **“This moment is my right.”**

**“And it is your _only_  right! Have your  _moment,_  jockey the soul from here to Hells and back, if it suits your fancy, this  _passage_  is  _mine._ ”**

Their wills meet in a violent clash, and Vesh could strangle nations with the fury she felt at being  _bested_  by this  _farce_  of a deity. 

She felt her hold on the ritual fall from her. The mouthless bitch couldn’t smile with that mask, but Vesh could  _feel_  it, damn her,  _DAMN HER!_  The tiefling in the tomb was offering up a stone of her own, and Vesh felt it slip from her and fall into the Raven Queen’s influence. 

**“This is my Champion’s tomb,”**  Death’s voice echoed with possession, accepting the offering and bringing the dead woman’s soul just a bit closer, just a bit, towards life.  **“I will answer my Champion’s call.”**

Vesh didn’t give a damn about the tiefling or the ranger or the so-called Queen of Death -  **“** _ **That is MY HUSBAND’S CALL!”**  _He was still using her power, he was still pressing against the thinner-and-thinner seal that bound her, he still needed her if he was going to channel the raising of a life, no matter who presided over it.  **“And I _will_   _not_  be kept from answering it!”**

The Raven Queen’s words were rushing water, torrential force. Her form was within and without, materializing before the mortals, and Vesh was already hissing with envy over that alone before the other goddess crowed,  **“ _HE is mine_.”**

Crackling rage burst from Vesh as she roared, primal, a quaking cry like a lioness large enough to swallow the sun. Which was actually on the agenda, as a matter of fact, if this bitch would  _step ASIDE. KASHAW WAS MINE FROM HIS MOTHER’S WOMB, NO FORMER HUMAN WHORE CAN TAKE HIM FROM-_

“Take me instead, you Raven Bitch.”

Vesh had been grasping her husband’s soul so tightly, she had not noticed that the man holding the corpse, whose tears bit into the very fabric of the planes, was shrouded in Death’s gaze.

The Raven Queen still stood in Vesh’s way, but Vesh knew the form of her within the tomb was the one that held her heart, her spirit, as she nodded, triumphant, as twin souls danced and made a trade.  _  
_

_I will answer my Champion’s call_ , she had said, the clever wench. She had marked  _this_  man as hers. The rogue with the dark hair and the bright soul, brimming with the heaviness of love.

Vesh was still seething, more than half-mad over just how  _close_  she’d been to freedom. But she had to hand it to the birdy bitch - she’d caught her new man good. The bones, the sister, the bargain - it was a commendably sinister ploy.

But all Vesh really cared about was her beloved, shaking, as the ritual ended, as his hold on her symbol relaxed. The light pouring from the cuts they’d once made together along his arm slowly dimmed, and the seal between them strengthened. She watched her husband sigh, relieved, as the ranger took a gasping breath. She felt his touch fall away. 

The Raven Waif had left her, then, alone, and still so trapped, trapped, trapped. The pretender queen would pay,  _oh_ , she’d pay for this conquest of a single soul. Vesh wondered if the newly minted goddess had a limit to how many souls she could ferry at once. It would be delicious fun to put her to the test.

The goddess of murder settled within herself, to wait, just to wait, ‘til next her darling, daring Kashaw Vesh decided to do a catastrophically, apocalyptically  _good_ deed _._

* * *

 

_originally posted[here](http://sicklyscribe.tumblr.com/post/156255929901/dark-divine)._

 


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